American Airlines’ 757s return to service

American Airlines Inc. said Wednesday that its Boeing 757s have been returned to service after the carrier finished inspecting 48 airplanes for possible problems with loose seats.

One airplane’s row of three seats had come loose twice last week, once on a flight from Dallas/Fort Worth to Vail, Colo., and again on a Boston-Miami flight. A second airplane had a row work loose on a New York-Miami flight.

American had said Tuesday that inspections had revealed seat mounting problems on four other Boeing 757s.

While the Transport Workers Union had pointed fingers at an outside contractor that had worked on the airplanes, American spokeswoman Andrea Huguely indicated that’s not the airline’s conclusion.

“Over the next few weeks we will continue to work with the FAA and all manufacturers involved to review the corrective action taken,” Huguely said. “We believe a contributing factor is with the seat tracking and locking mechanism, not with where the work was performed.”

She added: “While American Airlines employees and third-party contractors have worked on the 757 aircraft involved, we have the utmost confidence in our highly skilled maintenance and engineering teams as well our contract maintenance providers.”

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